Social Studies is a content area that is very culturally-embedded. For English Language Learners who may be new to the United States, the complex and abstract concepts that are discussed within this subject can be especially challenging. In addition, these concepts are often difficult to represent. Social Studies encompasses skills from other subject areas as well, especially language arts. Therefore, there are many challenges facing teachers in this content area.
On this page you will find resources to help mitigate the challenges of teaching ELL’s Social Studies.
Here are some for Social Studies, and some suggested resources to help with those areas:
Challenges
Resources
Higher Order Thinking Skills for reading and writing
Higher Order Thinking Skills- a resource for activities in social studies to promote the development of HOTS from University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Faculty Center for Teaching and e-Learning.
Culture-specific concepts: freedom, privacy, democracy, rights, etc.
http://www.panwapa.com/ An interactive website by Sesame Workshops where students can explore the world and different concepts of culture http://www.culturesontheedge.com/index1.html A unique site that takes a look at different cultures around the world and their people. It is designed almost like an art gallery or museum, with the “exhibits” changing and updating.
Timeline teaching vs. “dynasty” or “period” teaching
This PowerPoint presentation, gives a thorough overview of ELL instruction of social studies, and great activities to try. (Prepared by Global Language Solutions, LLC for the Institute for Second Language Achievement (ISLA) at Texas A&M - Corpus Christi and the Texas Education Agency)
http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/interact-socst.htm A list of tons of interactive social studies websites for students to explore
This article, published by NYU- Steinhardt, gives great review of challenges students have in social studies, as well as additional strategies teachers can use to help ELLs in social studies instruction.
Social Studies
Social Studies is a content area that is very culturally-embedded. For English Language Learners who may be new to the United States, the complex and abstract concepts that are discussed within this subject can be especially challenging. In addition, these concepts are often difficult to represent. Social Studies encompasses skills from other subject areas as well, especially language arts. Therefore, there are many challenges facing teachers in this content area.On this page you will find resources to help mitigate the challenges of teaching ELL’s Social Studies.
Judie Haynes has identified several challenges of ELL's specific to each content area
(http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/challenges_ells_content_area_l_65322.php )
Here are some for Social Studies, and some suggested resources to help with those areas:
http://earth.google.com/ Use actual pictures of the earth to teach about countries’ locations. GoogleEarth even lets you see streetview images of many cities and places.
http://nationalatlas.gov/natlas/Natlasstart.asp Interactive mapmaker of the US where students can choose to show different criteria on their maps
http://go.hrw.com/atlas/ Interactive atlas
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ CIA’s WorldFactBook
http://www.culturesontheedge.com/index1.html A unique site that takes a look at different cultures around the world and their people. It is designed almost like an art gallery or museum, with the “exhibits” changing and updating.
Using timelines to enhance comprehension: http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/13033
Directed Reading Strategy- Help to understand the textbook
Additional Resources
This PowerPoint presentation, gives a thorough overview of ELL instruction of social studies, and great activities to try. (Prepared by Global Language Solutions, LLC for the Institute for Second Language Achievement (ISLA) at Texas A&M - Corpus Christi and the Texas Education Agency)http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/interact-socst.htm A list of tons of interactive social studies websites for students to explore
This article, published by NYU- Steinhardt, gives great review of challenges students have in social studies, as well as additional strategies teachers can use to help ELLs in social studies instruction.
Providing opportunities for “virtual field trips” will add to your ELL students’ background knowledge and make them more familiar with different places they may not be able to go on their own:
Virtual Tours of Museums and Art Galleries
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/
Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/index.asp
American Museum of Natural History
http://www.amnh.org/
Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/
Colonial Williamsburg
http://www.history.org/history/
The Louvre
http://www.louvre.fr/louvrea.htm